


Dragon Ball NextGenWeek - Day 2 - Marron

by indevan



Series: Dragon Ball NextGenWeek 2019 [2]
Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Falling Behind, Family, Friendship, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 10:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18408389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indevan/pseuds/indevan
Summary: Marron muses on how her odd place in the middle of the other kids and her feelings of being unseen both in terms of power and at her job





	Dragon Ball NextGenWeek - Day 2 - Marron

**Author's Note:**

> also, not for nothing, but this is my 100th Dragon Ball fic i've posted on ao3!! i was going to do something special but i've been working so much so marron's the one who gets the lucky spot

Usually, Marron didn’t like to be by herself.  She was, at her core, a social person who enjoyed being around others.  From birth, almost, she had been close to her cousin who was more like a sibling to her, but he couldn’t be here with her because she was in the spare room that was somewhat converted to a gym and her cousin had zero use for a gym.

When they were little, she and Bardock seemed to be the same.  They were the same height, same size. Her father would have them stand next to each other in the doorway in the kitchen and tick off where they were height-wise and see how much they had grown since the last time.  The lines were still there and showcased the part where they diverged. Marron had inherited her height, or lack thereof, from her dad. Bardock took after his Saiyan side and, though they were the same age, he was nearly six and a half feet tall and she was barely over five foot.

That wasn’t the only difference.  When they were little toddlertots, Marron never noticed the difference in their strength.  She knew Trunks and Goten were stronger than her but she figured that it was because they were so much older.  Bardock was her age and she thought they were the same. Of course they weren’t. She learned, sooner or later, that it didn’t matter how hard she worked, her cousin was half-alien and destined to outdo her.

It wasn’t like he bragged.  It was a simple fact. He could make his hair turn blonde and keep pace with Goten and Trunks and she had to work harder.  Marron didn’t mind it, normally. She liked working out, liked training with her father and mother even if she knew she couldn’t reach her mother’s strength on her own either.  She was a human, like it or not, and she was impeded by that.

She didn’t let it stop her.  Not normally. She took private training lessons with Videl Satan and practiced on her own when she wasn’t at university or working.

_ Working! _

Marron looked at her fitness watch and cursed.  Lost in her thoughts, she had completely forgotten to check the time.  If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late.

She began to rush out of the gym and stopped in front of the mirrored wall.  Her reflection stared back: sweaty, red face and matted down blonde hair held back by a scrunchie.  She could not go to work like this--she couldn’t just get changed. Her boss would never let her live it down.  She checked her watch again. She could have time for a shower and not be late, right? Late and clean or filthy and on time?  With her job, there was no question. She would have time to workshop her excuse while she was in the shower.

\--

Work would have been a reprieve for her, but it wasn’t.  In many regards, Marron was lucky. She was the assistant to an actually famous designer as she went to school for fashion design.  She had a job in her field that could set her up connections in the future, but she felt apart from it. Everyone else barely paid her any mind even as she ferreted around giving everyone coffees and taking notes during meetings.  It was just another reminder that she never quite fit in. Other than her cousin, there was never anyone around her own age.

Now, sure, the difference in age between her and Trunks and Goten was minimal but it was an enormous gulf when they were kids.  Who wanted to be fourteen and hanging out with a nine-year-old? And anyway, they were too busy now. Goten worked weird hours and Trunks was busy at Capsule Corp and when they weren’t busy with work, they were busy with each other and their family.  On the other end, Pan and Bra were too young. Marron had vivid memories of being a teenager and trying to shake off the preteen duo who wanted nothing more than to include her in their games. Or, worse, their training. Having people  _ younger _ than her zoom by her in terms of skill was more annoying than the guys.

Her boss barely noticed she was late, which only further soured her mood, but she accepted Marron’s lie that the line at the Satanbucks was too long readily enough.  Since she was so invisible, she lurked around the designers for the remainder of the day until her presence was noticed.

“What is your deal?”

It wasn’t a large fashion house, so most people should have known her name, but most pretended not to.  Marron wondered, briefly, if it was because they thought she got the job due to knowing Bulma Briefs and her bottomless bank account and not because she was a bold type-A personality, wanting to get into her field of choice.

“Oh, I was just seeing what ideas you had in mind for the spring line,” she said, trying to recover.  Awkwardly, she rubbed the back of her neck--a tic she picked up from her father. “I heard cold shoulder tops were finally going out again.”

The other woman looked at her for a moment before nodding. “Agreed.  And thank Kami for that, right?”

Marron exhaled.  Every time she had a positive interaction with someone at work, she counted it at a victory.  She felt the pressure to be liked--knew it well. She was the daughter of possibly the most well-liked man on this planet and Marron was often seized with the desire to be just as liked.  Bardock said that she couldn’t decide between being a bold-type or a people pleaser and she usually told him to shut the fuck up.

_ Speaking of him… _

She had something she wanted to show him.  Something she had been practicing on her own.  Marron still remembered when they were kids and Bardock showed her how he could go Super Saiyan and she had been pissed!  It was the first time she had seen proof that he was going to shoot past her no matter what that she had completely forgotten to be awed by the transformation.

The thought of that kept her through the rest of the day until her boss remembered she existed and dismissed her with a terse, “Thank you, Maron.”  She always mispronounced her name but Marron was too intimidated to correct her. Despite her assertiveness, the sheepish part of her came out and she didn’t want to piss off a woman with so much clout and pull in the industry.

“Have a good night,” she said instead and left.

Work should have energized her, making her buzz with ideas to work on her own designs or, at the very least, her coursework but between that and rushing through her post-workout shower, Marron felt drained.  She walked out and started heading in the vague direction of the bus stop. She knew she had something she wanted to share with her cousin, but the thought of flying all the way out to the reserve where he lived was mentally taxing.  She wished she had more stamina. Wished she had a senzu, too. Wondered why Bulma never turned them into an energy drink or something.

She yawned, noting that her thoughts were going haywire.

“Marrrrrrrrrr.”

Marron stopped, just short of the crosswalk, at the sound of her nickname.  Among the commuters brushing past her, she felt a familiar throb of energy that was leaps and bounds above everyone else’s.

“What’s up?”

A heavy arm dropped across her shoulders and she turned to look at her cousin’s profile.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wriggling out from under his hold.

“It’s Friday, duh.”

Right.  At her father’s insistence, Friday nights were for everyone to get together and have dinner even though her mother and Uncle Seventeen didn’t really have to eat.

“Why are you here?”

“‘Cause I’m bored and I knew you were getting off work unless that Freeza in a powersuit you work for kept you late.”

Marron sighed.

“Bardy, she’s not at all like Freeza.  For one, she actually  _ wears _ clothes.  And designs them.”

“Oh, yeah...that dude is just naked twenty-four/seven, huh?  Gross.” Bardock crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out in disgust. “How come our dads don’t just kill him for good?”

“He’s popular in the galaxy, still, apparently,” she said. “But they ought to.  He killed my dad, you know.”

“And he makes a really gross squelching sound when he walks.” He frowned. “But mostly for the Uncle Krillin thing.  That’s rude as fuck.”

Marron gave a slight giggle.  Despite her frustrations in her own skill versus his, Bardock was still her best friend.  Basically her brother.

“Hey, so before we go back to my place, I have to show you something.”

Bardock paused at the red light and cocked his head to the side, all of his thick, dark hair spilling over his shoulder.

“Is it your sketchbook again, ‘cause I  _ told you, _ I don’t know what a notion is.”

Marron shook her head. “No, it’s something...y’know.  Power-related. Something I figured out how to do on my own.”

At that, his eyes lit up.

“Ooh.”

\--

They didn’t have to fly that far out of West City to find a private spot.  Marron adjusted the long sweater she wore over her tights and realized too late that the sand and dirt was probably going to ruin her one pair of good shoes for work.

_ Oh, well.  Too late for that now. _

“Ready?”

Bardock nodded. “Yeah.  Show me.”

Marron took a deep breath and lifted her arm over her head.  She concentrated the energy upwards solely through that arm. As it manifested in her hand, white-gold and blinding, she focused it into a disc shape.

“Oh, lame.  You said it’d be something different, but that’s just--”

“Bardock, shut up and watch!”

She flung the disc outwards, hurtling it towards a rock formation.  Right as it was about to hit, she swerved her hand up and it moved, curving back to strike a different formation of rocks.  They flew apart in an emphatic burst and she grinned victoriously.

“You can control the destructo-disc!” Bardock exclaimed. “Hell yeah, Marr!”

He high-fived her and she smiled.  It was at times like these where she didn’t feel like she was behind, didn’t feel in a weird middle space, and didn’t feel ignored.  She was just as accomplished as anyone else.

“After dinner, let’s go back out here and see how much shit we can blow up,” Bardock said excitedly as if they were still teenagers and not adults.

Marron knew she had to be the bold, assertive, mature career woman but instead she high-fived him again.

“Hell yeah we will!”


End file.
